Three international student organizations celebrated the Chinese Moon Festival, one of five major Chinese festivals, with an extravaganza of food, games and belly dancing.

The festival, which took place Saturday evening in the Student Center ballroom, drew a crowd of nearly 400.

The Moon Festival is a celebration of family reunion, moon gazing, and eating moon cakes.

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Moon cakes, round pastries stuffed with red bean paste and an egg yolk, were used to pass messages of rebellion among the Han nationality of China, who were imprisoned by the Mongolians.

Guest speaker Harvey Welch, vice president of student affairs, said that he was pleased with the hard work the student organizations put into preparing the evening.

I am very proud of these student associations, he said. One of the joys of my job is the opportunity to continually interact with these students. They never allow you a dull moment.

Following opening remarks, the crowd ate dinner, which featured a sampling of Chinese dishes such as spicy beef rendang, samosa, prawn cracker and meat dumpling.

A committee of students prepared the food, said Ya-Fang Cheng, a junior in music from Taiwan. We expected about 250 people, but we had almost 400. We were worried we wouldn’t have enough food.

Entertainment for the evening was provided in the form of jazz music and dancing and was coordinated by Tina Hui-Lin Kao, vice president of the Republic of China Student Association.

Seventeen prizes were given away during lucky draws, and several games had the audience up on their feet participating. Among the more challenging of the games was one in which couples were required to move a balloon between their bodies without using their hands.

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Also included in the evening was a fashion show in which various students modeled traditional Taiwan clothing. The peak of the fashion show came when students modeled clothing in the style of emperor and princess.

The belly dancing segment involved the crowd, who joined in the dances when the bellydancers went into the audience to look for dancing partners.

The belly dancing was a lot of fun, said Yoshihiro Maruyama, senior in Economics from Japan. I had a very good time meeting with my friends, and the food was nice.

The evening was a showcase of talented and creative students, Welch said.

They are very creative students, Welch said. Not only were they able to plan and budget this excellent event, but they were also able to execute it.